Thursday, August 08, 2013

House ad for The Vixen #1 (November 1978, but never published);
printed in Batman #304 (October 1978)
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino
Ad art: pencils by Bob Oksner, inks by Vince Colletta; from a panel in The Vixen #1

Don't remember that comic book? It's not surprising, because Zatanna wiped your memories of it. Also, and perhaps more importantly, it was never published, or, as we like to say around here, Well, That Didn't Happen. The Vixen's book was a victim of the DC Implosion (which I toldja about here and here): her book was cancelled for cost-cutting reasons before it was even printed. The comic, like many of the DC Implosion's victims, eventually was published in the Xerox-only, copyright-ensuring Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2. Look, here's supermodel Mari McCabe, the Vixen, getting booted out of the DC Building! G'wan, you loafers and freeloaders!

...which very helpfully reminds you that The Vixen is a Lady Fox! Say, just how do cartoon characters react to lady foxes?

Vixen's first archenemy is the villainous Manitoba!

No, he does not come from Canada.

Instead, as seen in this series of rapid fire flashbacks which prove Mari has a short attention span (I believe there are medications for that, Ms. M.), Manitoba is a thinly-disguised Idi Amin-type dictator who brutally murdered Mari's parents in their home DC-fiction-country of Zambesi.

Luckily for her and the comic book, Mari finds a mystical talisman that allows her to tap into the powers of all animals! So, sort of like Animal Man, but with jewelry. Keen!

Thus is born...The Vixen! Also born: the panel from which the ad art above was taken.

And for the first time, Vixen kicks ass! Yay!

Despite her non-starter status on the comic racks, Mari didn't have to wait too long to make her official debut into the DC Universe. She appeared a couple years later in Action Comics, where, according to the rules and regulations of Superheroes Local 213, she first kicked ass versus Superman...

Panel from "The Deadly Rampage of the Lady Fox" in Action Comics #521 (July 1981), script by Gerry Conway, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Frank Chiaramonte, colors by Gene D'Angelo, letters by John Costanza

...before she teams up to kick ass alongside Superman.

Later, Vixen (pretty much dropping the "the" at this point) joined that paragon of heroes, the Justice League of America Detroit...